Burkina Faso: Axed soldiers in botched protest as they demand reinstatement into forces

Some 100 former Burkinabe soldiers were barred from demonstrating outside Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Defense offices near the Presidential Palace on Monday in Ouagadougou. The soldiers who were axed from the armed forces after the April 2011 mutiny, were demanding reinstatement into the forces five years later.

The spokesman of the group had assured that the protest would be peaceful. However their event did not go as planned, as anti-riot police prevented them from accessing the government buildings in Ouaga 2000, the capital’s administrative district.

Given the extent of the military and civil protests in 2011, the then President Blaise Compaore sacked his entire government and the military hierarchy. A total of 626 soldiers and police officers were sacked.

Compaore was toppled in 2014, before fleeing to Ivory Coast where he adopted citizenship. He has however been indicted by the Burkinabe judicial system, for his alleged role in the assassination of President Thomas Sankara during the coup that brought him to power in 1987.